My method of chicken keeping

A fellow blogger recently wrote a post about all the varied options of chicken keeping. (the original post can be found here http://104homestead.weebly.com/1/post/2014/01/hot-topics-controvercial-issues-of-chicken-keeping.html)
She did a great job of summarizing the top choices that are out there for the main areas of care. She inspired me to share what I do and why. I agree with her that the best thing you can do is what works for you. If you go against your nature and instincts and force yourself to do something because someone out there said it was the right way to do it, you'll be miserable and that's not right!
Sorry my topics are not in the same order as hers, I was working off memory.

1) bedding - I use shavings in the coop and straw in the enclosed pen. I do a modified deep litter. The reason it's modified is that our coop door doesn't allow for too deep of litter. Also the rabbit urine really mucks things up. She pees in the same spot (it's what rabbits do) which happens to be directly in front of the door so I can't give her a litter box. Her urine makes things smell a lot faster. Before the rabbit I could go months without touching their litter. I would just add a small amount of new shavings when it looked or smelled liked it was getting dirty. Now I have to turn things over about every 2 weeks and change out all of the litter every month or two. I don't do sand because I've known too many people who have had reptiles die from impacting their stomachs with sand, and I'm strictly too lazy to clean out the coop that often. I just rake everything into a wheelbarrow and dump it either in their run for further breakdown, in the compost pile, or on the garden beds if it's winter.

2) winter - I don't provide additional light. We have plenty of eggs and we feel like our chickens are our pets so we let them have a break when they feel they need it. Of course if one day we are getting 0 eggs for weeks at a time, I might change my mind about this. I might also get a laying flock in the future that is just for laying and I may give them light if production slows too much.
I don't usually provide heat. The only time I have was when we had a frigid spell and it was below 0 for multiple days. We don't normally get that cold and it came on suddenly so the girls had no time to adjust to it. For those few days I put a work lamp outside on a cement block for them. It had a cage on it and a sturdy stand so I wasn't too worried about them knocking it over. One of the polish did manage to burn half her crest off though by sticking her head between the cage and the light. Stupid bird!
I didn't put it in the coop at night but shined it on the side wall from the outside to hopefully provide some radiant heat. They seemed much happier once it was put out there. They went from huddling together in a bunch to walking around and chattering again. It wasn't warm by any stretch of the imagination but I think it at least kept it around freezing in their little area. It kept their water from freezing during the day so that's another good that came out of it.

3) Incubating - I think using an incubator and a broody both have their pluses. The hens definitely do a better job! But I like having chicks inside and bonding with them. I see a huge difference in friendliness between the chicks my daughter spent a lot of time with and the ones she barely held. We will be starting our first batch of eggs in our homemade incubator this week. Hopefully we get a good hatch, although I'm only allowing myself to hope for a 20% hatch rate. If I had a broody I would probably split all of my hatch candidates between the broody and the incubator.
When I have a flock of birds that are for meat and eggs I will definitely let a broody hatch those.

4) Food - I have tried crumbles, mash, pellets, and whole grain foods. I personally find that my girls waste anything but pellets. I feed organic to avoid GMOs. I also feed almost all of our kitchen scraps and edible trash to them. I also let them out into the yard to free range (only under supervision now). I ferment the pellets as a treat. They love it but I can't see feeding that 100%, possibly in the warmer months but right now the bucket is inside and it's a pain to bring food in and out so it is just a treat for now. I currently sprout wheat seeds for them as another treat. Next month I am buying a bunch of bulk seeds and am going to try feeding that dry, sprouted, and fermented instead of the pellets. I am exploring this avenue because I like being able to decide what is organic and what's not since some things aren't worth the high price since they aren't a GMO product and are known for not needing pesticides. I have made my own dog and cat food before with good results before so I've gotten over the initial worry about providing the right nutrients. I did my research, looked at a lot of recipes and found the things I felt were most important and the best way to meet those needs. Since my chickens get a lot of scraps and free range I know they'll be fine even if their food is lacking in something.
Of course price is an important issue. I found I can make their food for just 1cent/pound more than I pay for the pellets. I think that is close enough to warrant trying it. I'll write a post on that once I get started on it.